Wang Wei

What are you thinking as we part, Reign in your horse, drink from this cup while we speak of disgrace When Wu Gorge howls and the monkeys weep, Will the wildgoose return to Hengyang with a royal decree?…. In autumn, the green maples on the river are fading away,In Baidi, it rains and the trees are few But a New Year is bound to bless us with the dew of His heavenly favor Take heart, we’ll soon be together again!

Let me get this quick draft out and I shall return. This poem should be read along with Li Bai’s poem “Setting off from Baidi”…

What will the New Year bring

What will the new year bring is a familiar refrain to all of us.

Tang poet Gao Shi (ca. 704–765) reflects on the disgrace shared by Vice-prefects Li and Wang (his friends and fellow poets, Li Bai and Wang Wei). Gao Shi could have written the lyrics for Donna Fargo’s song, “What will the New Year bring?”

“This past year was good to us the one before just a little rough The one before that was an awful thing what will the new year bring.”

755

The year 755 was a rough one in China. The An Lushan Rebellion began, lasting for eight years before General An Lushan was assassinated and the rebellion ended. A year after the rebellion began, the capital at Chang’an fell to the rebels, the emperor fled to Sichuan, then abdicated in favor of his son.

Things did not go well for poets Li Bai and Wang Wei.

758

In the summer of 758, Li Bai was banished to Yelang (near Hengyang and Xiazhong); before arriving, he benefited from a general amnesty. Wang Wei was captured by the rebels and forced to work for them. When the Tang forces freed him he was charged with treason, but saved by his brother a Tang official. Wang was banished for about four years in Qizhou (Guizhou, near Hengyang, near Changsha, Hunan province).

Baidi

Baidi refers to the grounds and Baidi Temple, which sits at the top of a hill, and is reached after a climb of a thousand steps. It is located at near the Qutang and Wu Gorges, north of the Yangtze River.

It was a frequent visiting place for poets and philosophers. (The image is not Baidi, but another temple.)

Pinyin

Notes on the Chinese

Lines 1 and 2. Gao Shi is taking leave of his friends Li Bai and Wang Wei. All three were known to like to drink.
Line 3. 巫峽 Wu Gorge, the second of three gorges along the Yangtze River. Monkeys live along the river banks. Line 4. 雁 wildgoose is the emperor. 衡陽 Hengyang, a prefecture size city in Hunan Province.
Line 5. Baidi, a famous temple complex at the top of a thousand stairs frequented bu poets.

Peach Blossom Spring

The story is about the chance discovery of a perfect utopia where people live in harmony with nature, unaware of the outside world for centuries. A fisherman accidentally stumbles on the beautiful spot, stays for a week, and then leaves marking the way with signs. All attempts to rediscover this Shangri-la are futile.

Wang Lun

Who, pray tell, is the friend Wang Lun (汪伦)?

My guess is Wang Wei, a close colleague with whom he shared many nights of revelry. The Chinese character 伦, Lun in Pinyin, translates to relationship, kinship, or peer. Thus, the phrase is my peer, my kin, my friend Wang.

There is an often repeated story that Li Bai, who was fond of drinking to exess and talking to the moon, drowned after falling from his boat in the Yangtze River when he tried to embrace a reflection of the moon in the water.

Wang Wei’s Farewell to Li Bai

Wang Wei , The Farewell (ca. 750 CE)

Dismounting, I offer my friend a cup of wine,
I ask what place he is headed to.
He says he has not achieved his aims,
Is retiring to the southern hills.
Now go, and ask me nothing more,
White clouds will drift on for all time.

Wang Wei died in 759, and thus did not outlast the devastating events of the An Lushan Rebellion (755–759).

In 756, the capital of Chang’an, causing great loss of life. Wang was captured by rebel forces and held as a prisoner but managed to escape. For this, he suffered a fall from the emperor’s grace. Grieving over the earlier deaths of his wife and mother, Wang retired to his home on the Wang River to study Buddhism, play musical instruments, paint and write poems.

The question – to whom is Wang Wei saying farewell?

Farewell Poem
Here in the hills, we bid farewell
The twilight fades as I close my twig door
Should the grass be green again next spring
Grandson, shall I see you once more

Notes on Wang Wei’s Farewell

Andrew W.F. Wong has given us a fine translation of two of Wang Wei’s Farewell Poems including this one. As it is short and straightforward, I thought I would give it a try. But then nothing good is ever straightforward.

Sòngbié, sòng bà

Sadly, rhyme and alliteration is often lost in translations.

The twist, if there is one, comes in line four. 王孫歸不歸, wángsūn guī bù guī, ends with a form Shakespeare would later adopt, to be or not to be, to come back or not. The question I ask is whether 王孫 wángsūn (王 wang, 孫grandson ) refers to a noble of the emperor’s house, as it is often translated, or to Wang’s grandson?

One other possibility exists. Wang Wei is obliquely addressing his younger brother 王縉, Wang Jin, one of the emperor’s chancellors.

In looking back, I notice that this translation is quite different from my earlier effort.

Wang Wei

Wang Wei (王維, 699–759) is regarded as one of the three most admired poets of the Tang dynasty, the other two being Li Bai and Du Fu. But Wang has the distinction of also being a recognized painter and musician. Rising to the position of Chancellor of the Tang court, he fell in disfavor during the An Lushan rebellion.

What are we to make of this poem?

Surviving the rebellion, and grieving for the death of his wife and sister, he retired to the family estate along the Wang River. I think we may gather that this poem was written there, that it was an epitaph for his dearly beloved wife for whom he still longed.

The title of the poem, 相 思, Xiāngsī, is most often translated as yearning, but it is also the Chinese symbol for love-sickness. Wang fittingly concludes his poem with the same characters to emphasize the emotion. I simplified this to “love” in my translation.

Red, red beans

For some reason Neil Diamond’s silly song Red, Red Wine comes to mind. Its repetitive lyrics are somehow relevant.

Line one, 紅 豆, hóngdòu, the red berries that Wang refers to are Azuki beans, which make into a red paste commonly used in Chinese treats. Red is a symbol of joy and happiness, but also the color of ink for writing the names of the dead in China. I have found a reference to “red beans” as missing someone. This comes from an ancient story of a Chinese wife who missed her warrior husband. He never returned and she cried tears that watered the ground, hardened into red beans, and grew into vines that produced still more red beans, 紅 豆, hóngdòu.

In China today, red beans still symbolize love and fidelity. So, a husband would be happy and lucky for his loving wife to serve a steaming bowl of red pinto beans.

Pinyin

Wang Wei

The 琴 referred to in line two is a Chinese zither, a stringed instrument that is plucked. The English/Chinese translation is more correctly “guzheng”.

Late in life, Wang became a devout Buddhist. His poems and this one in particular refer to emptiness and the lessons of silence. The poem was composed during the An Lushan Rebellion, when Wang’s fortunes with the Imperial Court fell and rose again. The poem was likely composed at his family estate near the Wang River in Shaanxi province.

The challenge with translation is to try and keep both the cadence and meaning of the poem intact. Wang composed his poem in four lines of five characters.

Deer Enclosure
Deep in the mountain forest, not a soul to be seen Yet I hear a sound stirring, a voice And as the setting sun looks back at the deep forest Shining back at me reflecting off the green moss

Version Two

No one is seen in the empty mountains, and yetA voice is heard, no more. In these deep dark woods, setting sunlight Shines on green moss, rising up at me.

Wang Wei

Wang Wei’s life spanned the years 699–759 AD.

He must be included in anyone’s list of superstar poets of the Tang Dynasty. He was also an accomplished painter and musician.

Wang Wei’s poem Deer Park (Deer Enclosure, Deer Hermitage…) stands on its own as a poem of nature’s beauty, but it has an underlying story. Most scholars agree that 鹿柴, Lù Zhài, Lu Chai, is an allusion to the Deer Park in Sarnath, India, where Buddha first preached. Beneath the famous Bodhi Tree, Gautama Buddha became enlightened, an event that took place in the 6th century BC.

Interpretation of Deer Park

Buddha taught the four noble truths: that we crave and cling to impermanent things, that these things are incapable of satisfying us, that this suffering ends with the freedom from these wants, that freedom is achieved through the right way.

Line 1, Wang Wei’s setting, 空山 translates literally as empty mountains, its literary meaning is serene mountains. 空 which is generally translated as empty may also mean: hollow, in vain, sky, air, or free, another allusion to Buddha’s teaching of the noble truths.

Line 4, the light of the sun that shines back at us is a mere glimmer of complete understanding. It is nevertheless, something, and like the will o’the wisp, as we approach it, it fades, ever receding from our grasp.

A lonely mountain keeps its secrets
And yet, I hear someone softly speaking
Where light shines in the forest deep
And the sun delights in seeking green moss

鹿 柴

空 山 不 見 人 但 聞 人 語 響 返 景 入 深 林 復 照 青 苔 上

Rhyme: abab

Meaning

Words fail me. They most always do for transcendent emotions are incapable of human description. Trying to capture the meaning and sound of the poem Deer Park by Wang Wei (王維 699–761) is an impossible task. Better to stand alone in the forest and listen to the silence.

Twenty characters in a rhyming pattern – abab. In the dark forest, the silence is profound. The poet is alone, and yet he hears a voice. Streaming through the pine trees is a ray of sunlight shining on a mossy grove where a deer has slept the night before.

The muse of poetry speaks.

Wang Wei

Wang Wei is a Tang poet who is equally well known for his painting and calligraphy. This particular poem is part of the Lantian collection, written after the An-Shi Rebellion (variously spelled, Anshi or An Lushan, 755–759) and Wang Wei’s fall from grace. Wang Wei then retired to his ancestral home in Lantian County in the province of Shangxi.

The title of the poem 鹿 柴 (Lu chai) translates best as Deer Park. The second character literally translates “to fence; to surround and protect with a wooden fence,” so sometimes the poem is called Deer Enclosure.

Wang Wei was a student of Buddhism. Therefore, he may be alluding to Deer Park in Sarnath, in Uttar Pradesh India, the site of the sacred Bodhi Tree where Gautama Buddha received his enlightenment and preached his first sermon.

English translation of Wang Wei’s poem 雜 詩

Wang Wei was famous for both his poetry and his paintings. And three hundred years after Wang Wei wrote these few lines of poetry, fellow Chinese poet and artist Su Shi wrote, “Wang Wei’s poems hold a painting within them.”

Well said, Shu Shi.

In a few short lines, Wang Wei has given us an image of the old country, a cold day, silken paintings, and a vision of plum flowers forever waiting to blossom.

But is Wang Wei worried for the paintings he left behind or the uncertainty of his life?

Wang Wei’s wrote this poem during during the An Lushan Rebellion. The emperor necessarily fled the capital of Chang’an, and Wang Wei, sick and ill was caught by the rebel forces. He managed to escape the following year and make his way south to rejoin the emperor, but was charged with treason for remaining behind.

Wang Wei eventually made his way back into the good graces of the emperor. Family connections helped. So too, did his poetry.

Original Chinese characters

君自故鄉來
應知故鄉事
來日綺窗前
寒梅著花未

The Chinese characters 來日 which begin the third line represent the future. In the third line, Wang Wei also uses the characters 綺 which phonetically is qi, the Chinese word for life force.

The first character of the last line is 寒. Used here it means cold, but the phonetic pronunciation is Han, the major ethnic group of China. Could it be that Wang Wei is giving us yet another image of China as a group of people threatened by the instability of the rebellion.

I must leave this and other questions to better scholars.

The last character of the poem 未 is phonetically the word Wei, also signifies the uncertainty of what is to come, leaving us no doubt that Wang Wei was writing these miscellaneous lines when the emperor was still deciding his fate.

At the suggestion of a comment, I have rewritten this poem. The rewrite is considerably different from the original translation, proving that I am a bad translator, was in a hurry, that translations are difficult, or all three. One of the many pitfalls of translations is to translate phonetically similar words on the basis of sound and not meaning. This problem occurs in all languages, including English, my dear (deer). Consider, we must polish the Polish furniture.

Also, in looking further into the matter, I discovered that Wang Wei wrote several farewells or adieus to friends. This poem is one of the shorter farewells. I hope to get around to the others in time.

Farewell

On the mountain slope, we stop and bid farewell Until the dusk descends, and I close my wooden gate In Spring, the grass will again turn green But will you my friend return?

Notes

First line, one has to appreciate the musical sound of the title, Sòng bié, and the end of the first line, sòng bà.

Second line ends with 柴 扉. I translate this as a wooden door, and to be more specific a door with one leaf, suggesting how poor the hut is that Wang Wei lives in.

Last line, Wang Wei ends the poem with the three characters 歸 不 歸, literally return or not return. Sounds like Shakespeare’s to be or not to be. The second character 孫 is Wang, the poet’s family name, and also “king”. 孫 (sun, phonetically) is Chinese for grandson. Wang Sun is a mystery. Perhaps a proper name or a reference to a nobleman or one of Wang Wei’s relatives.

Wang Wei, 王維

Wang Wei was a Tang dynasty Chinese poet, musician, painter, and statesman. One could say he was a “man for all seasons” having enjoyed the imperial court’s favor, he was equally happy when that favor left him and he departed for the seclusion of his Lantian estate, as a sometimes Buddhist hermit.